


The Gift of Broken Wings

by likehandlingroses



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:18:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1532300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bae has always wondered why his father limps. On his fifth birthday, he finally finds the courage to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gift of Broken Wings

“Papa, I wanna see how much I grew!”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course. I’d almost forgotten. Come here, son.”

Bae scrambled to his father’s side and stood upright against his walking stick.

“Am I taller?”

Papa laughed. “Indeed you are, my boy. Now, just one minute…”

He fumbled about for a pocket knife. Bae went to counting the already existing marks. _One, two, three, four…_ the fourth was nearly a full head shorter than he was now.

“Papa, I grew a lot, didn’t I?”

“You did. Soon you’ll be taller than the stick, and then what will we do?”

Bae giggled as his father turned him around gently.

“Now, hold still, son. Chin up…there we go…all done.”

 “Let me see!” Bae delighted in the new mark, so much higher than the one before it. As he traced it, a question flitted across his mind. He’d thought it before, but he’d always been afraid to ask. Now that he was five, the question didn’t seem so frightful.

“Why do you have this?”

“My walking stick? Well, I need it to help me walk, son.”

“But why do you need it?”

He blinked. “I have a bad leg.”

“I know that,” Bae said. He stared down at the ground for a minute. He wasn’t asking the right question. Or maybe Papa didn’t want to talk about it.

“You want to know how I hurt my leg, don’t you, son?”

Bae’s head shot up, his eyes wide. His father smiled, though there was something in his eyes that made Bae’s stomach twist. It was like when Mama didn’t come home until it was dark, and Papa would say it was all right even though it wasn’t. He shook his head. He didn’t want to know anymore.

“No?” Papa asked, his voice soft. “It’s a good story. I think you’d like it.”

The bad thing was gone from his eyes when Bae chanced a glance back up at them. Nothing but a warm smile remained on his face.

“Come here, sit down with me, and I’ll tell it to you.”

“It’s a story?” Bae crawled up into his father’s lap after he’d sat himself down at the stool next to his spinning wheel.

“Yes, it is,” Rumple said, folding his arms around his son. “You know the trees by the river, son? The ones so high, you can hardly see the tops of them?”

“Mmhm,” Bae replied. He placed his hands on his father’s, drawing them tighter around him.

“Well, up there, up at the very tops of those trees, there’s a city filled with people.”

Bae turned his head up to look at his father.

“There is?”

“There is. See, everyone up there can fly, and that’s why they live in the trees like birds. Some trees have houses on them, others have markets. There’s even a castle. And they’ll just fly from one tree to another, just as we walk or ride in wagons to get from place to place.”

“People can’t fly!”

“These ones can.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was one of them. Next time we go to the river, I’ll show you the exact tree I used to live in. It’s a nice old tree. The only trouble was, we lived under someone else, and they’d shake the leaves off onto our heads sometimes. ”

He ruffled Bae’s hair, and the boy laughed.

“Papa, I thought you were going to tell me about your leg.”

“I was just getting to that part. See, I used to be able to fly. But, one day, I happened to look down. And there, all the way down, down, down on the ground, I saw that I had a son. Just a wee speck of a thing, from where I was standing. But I didn’t have to see him very well to know I loved him more than anything.”

“That’s me!” Bae beamed.

“Yes, it was you. But you couldn’t fly, and so I couldn’t get a very good look at you. And I certainly couldn’t hold you or tell you stories or do anything fathers ought to do.

“Now I was upset. Very, very upset. So I flew right over to the castle where the king lived. I said to the king, I said, ‘I need to be with my boy.’ But he told me no magic in the world could make you fly. So, I said, ‘Well, I want to go down and be with him, if it’s all the same to you.’

“Well, he didn’t like that very much. He told me I couldn’t fly anymore if I did that. And I said, ‘Very well then, that’s fine. I’d rather be down there then up here.’ But you see, you’re not supposed to say that to a king. They’re very proud, you know. So he pushed me out of the tree.”

“All the way from the top?”

“Yes, indeed. And I couldn’t fly anymore, so I hit the ground quite hard. Fell on my leg and broke it in two. It’s never quite healed, so I use the stick to help me walk.”

Bae said nothing for a long while. Finally, Rumple turned his son to the side to better face him.

“You all right, Bae?”

Bae nodded, and then shook, his head.

“Papa…does your leg hurt now still?”

“Oh, no, no. Not much, anyway. I don’t mind it, son.”

“Why did you do that, Papa?”

“Do what?”

“Get pushed out and stop flying. You could have hurt yourself really bad.”

The thing was back in his father’s eyes. Bae nestled himself against his father so he didn’t have to see it. Rumple tightened his arms around him and planted a kiss to his forehead.

“Oh, my boy,” he whispered. “My sweet boy.”

He said nothing for a very long time. Bae place his hand on top of his papa’s.

“Your hands are shaking,” he said.

“I’m just tired, son.”

“Oh.”

“Baelfire, do you know why I told you that story?”

Bae shook his head.

“It wasn’t to upset you, son. I am so happy I looked down that day and saw you. If I hadn’t…I don’t know what I’d do. That was a very special day for me, and I wanted you to know that.”

Bae looked up at his father. “So…you don’t mind that you can’t fly?”

Papa shook his head.

“And your leg…does that make you sad that you hurt it?”

“Not in the slightest, son. The moment I held you, I knew I’d made the right choice. That’s why I put the marks on the stick. So I can always remember what a wonderful gift I got in return. ”

“Me,” Bae murmured.

“Yes.”

“So it’s a happy story, Papa?”

His father squeezed him. “It’s the happiest one I know, Bae.”

 


End file.
